No very accurate statistics can be given of African affairs; but their
population has been estimated at 50,000,000, and to have been about the
same for many centuries; of which population, even including the wildest
tribes, far over four-fifths have ever been slaves among themselves. The
earliest and the most recent travellers among them agree as to the
facts, that they are cannibals; that they are idolaters, or that they
have no trace of religion whatever; that marriage with them is but
promiscuous intercourse; that there is but little or no affection
between husband and wife, parent and children, old or young; that in
mental or moral capacity, they are but a grade above the brute creation;
that the slaves and women alone do any labour, and they often not enough
to keep them from want; that their highest views are to take slaves, or
to kill a neighbouring tribe; that they evince no desire for
improvement, or to ameliorate their condition. In short, that they are,
and ever have been, from the earliest knowledge of them, savages of the
most debased character. We have, in a previous study, quoted authority
in proof of these facts, to which we refer.
Will any one hesitate to acknowledge, that, to them, slavery, regulated
by law, among civilized nations is a state of moral, mental, and
physical elevation? A proof of this is found in the fact that the
descendants of such slaves are found to be, in all things, their
superiors. If their descendants were found to deteriorate from the
condition of the parents, we should hesitate to say that slavery was to
them a blessing. Which would man consider the most like an act of mercy
in Jehovah, to continue them in their state of slavery to their African
master, brother, and owner, or to order them into that condition of
slavery in which we find them in these States? Which state of slavery
would a man prefer, to a savage, or to a civilized master?
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